Louise Bogan

Louise Bogan (11 August 1897 – 4 February 1970) was an American poet. She was appointed the fourth Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1945, a role today known as U.S. Poet Laureate, becoming the first woman to hold this title. Throughout her life she wrote poetry, fiction, and criticism, and became the regular poetry reviewer for The New Yorker.

Samuel Barber put her poem "To Be Sung On The Water" to music in 1968 and requested that it be played at his burial in 1981. Dictionary of Literary Biography contributor Brett C. Millier described her as "one of the finest lyric poets America has produced." He said, "the fact that she was a woman and that she defended formal, lyric poetry in an age of expansive experimentation made evaluation of her work, until quite recently, somewhat condescending."